I hope all of my faithful co-tangenteers, readers, lurkers, and (maybe even) spammers had a blessed Thanksgiving Day spent with loved ones celebrating all the wonders and gifts that He has bestowed upon us.  As has been the tradition at the home of Jamiahsh and family for the past 29 years (I believe) we had the noon meal with the parents, siblings, and their children.  Alex offered up a prayer of Thanksgiving before we dug in.  Noah offered up his own take as he lifted up his forkful of food.

After lunch, SOME of us took naps.  I dunno how anyone managed this as 8 children do tend to create a lot of (at times) happy noise.  At other times (when the three oldest went upstairs to get away from it all and the other 5 wanted to go), we encountered the cries of the littlest who got her fingers caught in the door.  Later, I tried to organize a game of UNO… thinking that this would alleviate a bit of the rambunction. It kind of worked… especially when a 5 year old kept winning.

For the evening meal, we had another crew join the rest of us.  Since my mother’s mom passed away nearly 30 years ago, we have served leftovers for my maternal aunt and uncle and their families as well.  Every year it seems to get more crowded.  Maybe that community center idea is getting better.  Of course, it would be kind of had to gather around the television to watch the Cowboys get beaten… poor Chad!  Finally, after the game and the annual feast of popcorn, buttered toast, pretzel sticks, and jelly beans of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, the festivities came to a close for another year… well for a month, anyway… wonder who gets the honor of hosting the big Christmas bash?  I guess Uncle Bob and Aunt Lu.

I did forget my part in the day’s festivities.  I was asked to go to my oldest brother’s house at 8:30AM to pick up his crock pot.  I figured that everyone would be up and about so I did not grab the spare set of house keys.  When I arrived, I found the house locked up.  I went back home to discover that Jeff had decided to hit the stores early.  I grabbed the keys and went back and grabbed the pot.

Now let the fun, hustle and bustle, and celebrating take us to 2011.

The chaos actually began Wednesday morning.  Mom was working in the beauty shop… UNTIL 11 at which time she wanted the kitchen.  At ten, Dad decides it is the perfect time to strip the counter top off.  Granted, it is pretty old, worn, and could stand be be replaced… but the day before we have company over for Thanksgiving?!  Oh, MY… am I glad I had to go to work from 12-9.

After my 9 hour shift, I returned to see him still at it.  Mom was already in bed, but I can imagine the scene at home.  I would not want to have been there 😀 .  At around 11.30, he decides it is good enough and THEN decides to run the vacuum.  At 11.45, Mom comes out, gives him a dirty look, and walks back into the bedroom… nothing even needed to be said.

Thursday morning, I got up at 8 in time to shower, bring the table and chairs down from upstairs, then watch the Macy’s parade.  Ironically, my favorite part of the 3 hour extravaganza is not the floats, nor the balloons.   It is watching the performers from Broadway shows and singing groups seeing how badly they can lip sync.  Who is Boy Likes Girl?  I must be getting really old!  Did anyone see Gloria Gaynor and her 30 year old “I Will Survive?”

After the parade came (not the dog show) the traditional immediate family dinner.  Ma and Pa, siblings and their families.  I did not indulge too much because I had two other meals to attend.  I did get to see Chad and his pumpkin pie (or was it Cool Whip with a bit of pumpkin).

After digesting a bit, I ventured to another gathering.  I knew I had a good amount of time between the afternoon and evening gathering so I went to the home of my wonderful friends and had smoked turkey and other delicious food.  We have never had smoked turkey, but I find it enjoyable.  Carol brought a game that I swear I did not cheat at.  I read a few cards without looking at the answer and put them in the back of the box.  It’s only cheating if you look at the answer 😉 And I was treated to The Potty Movie… thanks girls.  I found it quite odd that a 3 year old had a strangely deep feminine voice.

Finally, I returned home for our traditional Thanksgiving celebration with my mother’s family.  In total, we probably had 20-25 people in the house.  It’s always good to be surrounded by family and loved ones but something about the holidays makes it even greater.  Maybe it’s the constant ribbing Chad tries to dish out about sports but knows he is fighting a losing battle.  Outnumbered about 16:1.  But the Cowboys again won their gimme.  Maybe that’s why they always play on Turkey Day.  Sorry I can’t say the same for the Lions.

Finally, about 10, everyone was gone, tables and chairs put back. and I was pooped.  I wanted to go back for a game night, but I did have to be at work at 6.30 this morning and I almost did not make that!  Hope everyone had a great holiday giving thanks for the many blessings we receive every day!

A little turkey day humor

↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔

Ode to Thanksgiving

To our national birds
The American Eagle
The Thanksgiving Turkey
May one give us peace in all our states
And the other a piece for all our plates

↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔

Thanksgiving Divorce

A man in Phoenix calls his son in New York the day before Thanksgiving and says,”I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; forty-five years of misery is enough.

“Pop, what are you talking about?” the son screams. We can’t stand the sight of each other any longer,” the father says. “We’re sick of each other, and I’m sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Chicago and tell her.”

Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone. “Like heck they’re getting divorced,” she shouts, “I’ll take care of this,”

She calls Phoenix immediately, and screams at her father, “You are NOT getting divorced. Don’t do a single thing until I get there. I’m calling my brother back, and we’ll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don’t do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?” and hangs up.

The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife. “Okay,” he says, “they’re coming for Thanksgiving and paying their own way.”

↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔

Stuffed Turkey

Baby Bruno was sitting in his grandmother’s kitchen,
watching her prepare the Thanksgiving meal.

“What are you doing?” Bruno asked.

“Oh, I’m just stuffing the turkey,” his grandmother replied.

“That’s cool!” Bruno said.
“Are you going to hang it next to the deer?”

↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔

The Turkey Popped Out of the Oven

The Turkey popped out of the oven
and rocketed in to the air;
It knocked every plate off the table
and partly demolished a chair.
It ricocheted into a corner
and burst with a deafening boom,
Then splattered all over the kitchen,
completely obscuring the room.
It stuck to the walls and the windows,
it totally coated the floor,
There was turkey attached to the ceiling,
where there had never been turkey before..
It blanketed every appliance,
it smeared every saucer and bowl;
There wasn’t a way I could stop it;
that turkey was out of control.
I scraped and I scraped with displeasure
and thought with chagrin as I mopped,
That I would never again stuff a turkey
with popcorn that hadn’t been popped.
written by Jack Prelutsky

↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔↔

.

HAPPY

.

THANKSGIVING!

I am thankful every day for all that I have, but today is an excuse to  feast in celebration of our thankfulness.  Here’s to hoping you have a safe and happy holiday!

I’m not quite sure what I will be doing on Thanksgiving except driving to Ft. Wayne in the afternoon so my youngest can take care of her kennel duty. I will be picking her up tomorrow afternoon and then driving back on Thursday. I’m not sure yet what I will have for dinner on Thanksgiving.

So Thanksgiving, of course, is a day to give thanks. This year wasn’t the best, but it did have some things to be thankful for.

There was an addition to my family when my 3rd daughter got married, and so I now have a 3rd son in the family.

During that time my second daughter and her family came up to Ohio to attend the wedding. I was able to schedule some time off and take them back to Florida. So I was able to spend some time with the part of the family I see the least.

My youngest started college and is doing well at school.

I’ve been able to spend a lot of time with my oldest daughter this year.

And I have some wonderful friends who have been a comfort for the lousy times of this year.

Have a Happy and Save Thanksgiving.

What?!? Believe it or not, the title of my post does not have the slightest hint of sarcasm!  Walmart really DID save the day for us yesterday!  It almost makes me sorry for my many rants against Walmart and their shady practices designed to put small companies out of business…  almost sorry, but not quite there.

It all started when we decided to take the kids over to Fort Wayne, Indiana, which is about an hour away.  We pulled into a stall at the Sonic drive-thru for a light lunch and some slushies (Sonic has awesome slushies and drinks), when we realized we had forgotten my husband’s wallet, which left us without money or credit cards.  Luckily, we had picked up the mail before we left the house and brought it in the car with us.  And luckily², we had gotten a commission check in the mail.  So we braved the ‘big city’ Walmart customer service line on the Saturday after Thanksgiving to see if they would take pity on us and cash the check even without my husband’s ID.  We were gifted with even more luck when they accepted my driver’s license to cash my husband’s check, and we were able to eat lunch.  Except now it had gotten really late and we were all really hungry, so we decided to skip Sonic and go to the Golden Corral that was in the Walmart outlot instead.  If you braved my posts about our vacation diary, then you know how much we like Golden Corral.  And I’d say that the one in Fort Wayne is of the best quality out of any of the others we’ve been to.  After lunch, we took the kids to a McDonald’s Playland, but it had only one little tunnel and one small slide; prompting our 4-year-old to proclaim, “Dad, this is boring!”  But our 2-year-old loved it, and soon there were more kids to play with and everybody had lots of fun – including mom and dad since there was also a foosball table.  When we left the McDonald’s, we noticed there was a Burger King across the street (when isn’t there?), and that Burger King had a 3-story play area!  Oh, well, we had fun where we went and we can remember the BK for next time.  We quenched our thirst with drinks from Sonic, and there was a cool looking car wash next door, so we treated the kids to a car wash also -they love watching the soap, brushes, and water cascading off the car.  The second we pulled out of the wash –ding ding – our low fuel bell rang – uhoh.  My husband and I just looked at each other because it wasn’t like we had unlimited money with us.  In fact, we had spent the last of the check money at the car wash.  Thank goodness gas prices are decent these days because with the change we were able to scrape together from my wallet and the car, we had enough to get us gas to get home…  whew!  Perhaps it can even be considered a blessing in disguise.  When you compare the variety of shopping Fort Wayne offers to our hometown choice of Super Walmart and…  well, just the Super Walmart, unleashing us in a larger city with all those shopping varieties could have been disasterous to our bank account!

And by the way, the Walmart customer service line wasn’t too bad, all things considered.  Most of the line consisted of a family who had 6 kids and one on the way -wow.  And I thought I had a lot of kids!

Another Thanksgiving weekend is upon us, and so far it’s been wonderful for us.  Thanksgiving dinner was deliciously cooked by my husband and our guests who were kind enough to bring yummy dishes to share.  We played some games afterwards and watched the movie “21” -not very Thanksgiving-y, but a good movie nonetheless.  The night before Thanksgiving, my husband and I watched some Thanksgiving episodes of Friends – I think I had forgotten how funny that show was.  It’s strange because now when we watch Friends episodes, we are older than the Friends, whereas when the show was still running new in prime time, the friends were older than us…  oh well, yet another example of how time flies.  Over the turkey last night, we also did our tradition where we go around the table and say what we’re thankful for – and my ever-generic answer was the same as some of my friends, “I am most thankful for my family and friends.”  It may be a generic response, but it’s very true, and I am very blessed to have such a wonderful family (my husband and kids and our relatives who live far away – we hope everyone had a wonderful day) and such great friends.

So now, Black Friday is upon us, and I was able to convince my husband to not go shopping.  Every year, he wants to get up at the crack of dawn, if not before, and go wait in the lines to see the best sales stores have to offer.  But I’m never very enthused, mostly because we have 4 children under the age of 9.  I keep telling him to put it on his “when our kids aren’t so little” list, although I have one that’s lengthy enough for the both of us.  It’d be nice if one year we could get a babysitter for Black Friday so we wouldn’t have to wake all the kids up, but until that happens, I’m not willing to lose the sleep myself or have the kids lose it either.  So today for Black Friday, I’ve already had my first turkey-and-leftover sandwich, and we’re going to take the kids to see Bolt (our two oldest girls are excited to hear the voicework of Miley Cyrus) at the movie theater with a friend and her grandkids.  We haven’t been to a movie in forever.  I just hope our 2-year-old can behave.  After the movie, we’ll walk across the street for dinner, and then we’ll go see if Santa’s reindeer have arrived on the square before we get our spots to watch the parade.  Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, our town has a parade celebrating Santa’s arrival.  They bring real reindeer to the square, and everyone lines the streets in anticipation of seeing Santa Claus come to town.  His sleigh is pulled by huge beautiful horses, and last year, Santa called out hello to us and knew us by name!  When Santa reaches the town square, a few lucky children get to push the big button that turns on the Christmas lights on the square, and everyone cheers as they sip their complimentary cups of hot chocolate.  It’s like something out of a cheesy holiday movie, and I relish every minute of it.  I don’t know who is more excited today -me or the kids!  I love small town life!  And right now, as I’m writing this, I just saw Santa’s sleigh (covered of course) get pulled down our street with a golf cart!  I excitedly yelled out, but thank goodness the kids didn’t come down here in time to see it – I think it’d be better for them to see it for the first time in the parade.  It was exciting for me to see though!

I’m not sure what the rest of the weekend holds, but I do know that I get twice as much time with my husband and kids as a normal weekend, and for that I’m also very thankful.  I hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday!

Day 1 is almost finished. 5 years ago today, I found out that my wife had terminal cancer. We knew it was cancer before that day, but we didn’t know anything about the kind of cancer. At the University of Michigan Medical Center we found out it was a very rare aggressive cancer, most likely terminal.

This day five years ago put a gray shadow on the Thanksgivings that were to follow.

I don’t care what people say, time does not heal all wounds. Time makes some wounds bearable.

Well I did make it through the day. Actually had a relaxing time. Spending time with people/family who knew my wife and were not afraid to bring her into the conversation of the day helped.

We didn’t have a traditional Thanksgiving meal. There was no turkey or dressing. The mashed potatoes were part of a Shepard’s Pie. Breads of all kinds filled the table. There was plenty of food and even more conversation.

I had a long talk with my dear wife’s parents. They do treat me well. Saw two of my four daughters. One is still many states away, the other spent the day with her future husband’s family. That is the way life goes. Families grow and the young leave the nest. This really isn’t a sad time for me, I’m proud to see my children grow and become adults.

So there are things to be thankful for after all

Good night folks.

Here’s a fun game for the holidays, providing you like Superman and the show Seinfeld, for that matter.  I read an interesting little blurb in the paper the other day about how Jerry Seinfeld is a huge fan of Superman.  So much so that there is a reference or an image of the “Man of Steel” in every episode of Seinfeld.  So this holiday season, while your turkey is cooking, digesting, or being cleaned up for you by your guests (how do you think I found the time to write this post on Thanksgiving Day?), pop in a few old episodes of Seinfeld and try to pinpoint the Superman allusion.

This is the post you were expecting today.  Happy Thanksgiving!  My mother, my grandmother, my uncle, and I got together on this fine day for our nonstandard (read: restaurant) meal, followed by pumpkin and apple pie at home.  My brother and nephew always spend this day with Alex’s relatives on his mom’s side, so they didn’t join us.  Not a big gathering as you can see, so there is not much to say unlike my fellow blogger Jamiahsh.  As such, I will just say thank you God for my family, my job, my friends, and my salvation through Jesus who died on the cross for my sin.  Now I will end with a couple of Thanksgiving videos I pulled from Godtube.  They are sort of related to the theme of my site too, as they involve kids.  Enjoy!

[godtube]https://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=e7a4e540c5408f9820be[/godtube]

[godtube]https://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=63b7e045fc2964c6ed23[/godtube]